Prosecutors in Kentucky can't
charge
people with manufacturing methamphetamine unless they actually have everything
they need to do so, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled on June 12.
Prosecutors there had gotten in the habit of charging people they suspected
of preparing to manufacture meth with actual manufacture. Under Kentucky
law, attempted meth manufacture warrants a five-year minimum sentence,
while actual meth manufacture garners a minimum 10-year sentence.
The ruling came in the case of Ronald Kotila, who was convicted in Pulaski
County on a meth manufacturing charge in 1999. Kotila possessed many
of the items needed to cook speed -- all of them commonly available and
legal by themselves -- but not two essential ingredients, anhydrous ammonia
and muriatic acid. Kentucky law specifies that for someone to be
charged with meth manufacture, he must possess "the chemicals or equipment
for the manufacture of methamphetamine."

The Supreme Court interpreted
the phrase strictly. "The presence of the article 'the' is significant
because, grammatically speaking, possession of some but not all of the
chemicals or equipment does not satisfy the statutory language," the court
said in an unsigned opinion.

Prosecutors began to whine
immediately. "We're going to have to examine all of our cases that
are pending right now," Davies County prosecutor David Nall told the Owensboro
Messenger-Inquirer. "It's really taken away a big stick so to speak,
a punishment hammer. You've basically cut the fear in half."
And so did at least one Supreme Court member, Chief Justice Joseph Lambert,
who wrote the minority opinion in the 4-3 decision. It will be difficult
to prosecute meth manufacture cases, Lambert wrote, because a suspect "with
the least amount of ingenuity will be able to prevent his conviction by
merely omitting from his cache of tools and ingredients one or two of the
more common, and bringing in the missing components only at the last moment.
Thus to achieve a conviction... it will be necessary to catch the offender
'red-handed.'"

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